POLICE say man shoots estranged wife, son at Little League game before shooting self

Updated:
Tuesday, July 17, 2001 12:00 AM EDT

ST. LOUIS (AP) _ A 34-year-old man opened fire just after his son's baseball game, killing his estranged wife and 10-year-old son as players and parents fled for cover, police said.

The man later killed himself Monday night, authorities said.

The Little League game at Penrose Park in north St. Louis had just ended when the 31-year-old woman, watching her son's game from her car, saw her husband approaching, police said.

The woman yelled for her son to hurry into the car. The man killed his wife as she sat in the car, then turned the gun on his son, St. Louis Police Chief Joe Mokwa said. No one else was injured.

``It's a tragedy and it's tough for our officers to take a look at a young boy in a baseball uniform laying here dead, shot multiple times,'' Mokwa said.

The gunshots sent a crowd of families scrambling. The boy's teammates were among several witnesses to the shootings.

``We heard gunshots and we looked up and we saw him down and saw the mother's windshield shattered, and she was gone and he was gone,'' said Warren Scott, the boy's Little League coach.

The gunman fled in a car, which police said they found less than two hours later, pulled over on the side of the road. The suspect died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, police said. A .40-caliber pistol was found in the car.

Police did not immediately release the names of the gunman or the shooting victims.